THE MODERN OCCULT. 453 



in New York in October, 1875. Mme. Blavatsky directed the thought 

 of this society to the doctrines of Indian occultism, and reported the 

 appearance in New York of a Hindu Mahatma, who left a turban behind 

 him as evidence of his astral visit. Later Mme. Blavatsky and Colonel 

 Olcott (who remained her staunch supporter, but whom she referred to 

 in private as a 'psychologized baby') went to India and at Adyar estab- 

 lished a shrine from which were mysteriously issued answers to letters 

 placed within its recesses, from which inaccessible facts were revealed 

 and a variety of interesting marvels performed. Discords arose within 

 her household and led to the publication by M. and Mme. Coulomb, 

 her confederates, of letters illuminating the tricks of the trade by which 

 the miracles had been produced. Mme. Blavatsky pronounced the let- 

 ters to be forgeries, but they were sufficiently momentous to bring Mr. 

 Hodgson to India to investigate for the Society for Psychical Besearch. 

 He was able to deprive many of the miracles of their mystery, to show 

 how the 'shrine' from which the Mahatma's messages emanated was 

 accessible to Mme. Blavatsky by the aid of sliding panels and secret 

 drawers, to show that these messages were in style, spelling and hand- 

 writing the counterpart of Mme. Blavatsky's, to show that many of the 

 phenomena were the result of planned collusion and that others were 

 created by the limitless credulity and the imaginative exaggeration of 

 the witnesses — 'domestic imbeciles,' as madame confidentially called 

 them. The report of the society convicted 'the Priestess of Isis' of "a 

 long continued combination with other persons to produce by ordinary 

 means a series of apparent marvels for the support of the Theosophic 

 movement"; and concludes with these words: "For our own part, we 

 regard her neither as the mouthpiece of hidden seers nor as a mere vul- 

 gar adventuress; we think that she has achieved a title to permanent re- 

 membrance as one of the most accomplished, ingenious and interesting 

 impostors in history." Mme. Blavatsky died in 1891, and her ashes 

 were divided between Adyar, London and New York. 



The Theosophic movement continues, though with abated vigor, 

 owing partly to the above-mentioned disclosures, but probably more to 

 the increasing propagandism of other cults, to the lack of a leader of 

 Mme. Blavatsky's genius, or to the inevitable ebb and flow of such in- 

 terests. Mme. Blavatsky continued to expound Theosophy after the 

 exposures, and Mrs. Besant, Mr. Sinnett and others were ready to take 

 up the work at her death. However, miracles are no longer performed, 

 and no immediately practical ends are proclaimed. Individual develop- 

 ment and evolution, mystic discourses on adeptship and Karma and 

 Maya and Nirvana, communion with the higher ends of life, the cultiva- 

 tion of an esoteric psychic insight, form the goal of present endeavor. 

 The Mahatmas are giving "intellectual instructions, enormously more 

 interesting than even the exhibition of their abnormal powers." . . . 



